The Swimming Diaries (2024) "Ingenious" Donald Clarke, The Irish Times "Astonishing film and music" Film Director, Guy Maddin "A beautiful meditation on grief and mother loss. Poetry for the senses. Resonant and deeply moving. Unexpected. What a beautiful and artistic way to express the spoken word. The participants were so talented in their interpretations." Dances With Films, Los Angeles Over the last year I have directed a Reel Arts Council of Ireland film which translates my memoir 'The Swimming Diaries' into an experimental and conceptual docufiction. The World premiere took place at the Dublin International Film Festival DIFF on 28 February 2024. The film is now listed on MUBI and this is an article for RTE I wrote about making the film. The Swimming Diaries soundtrack album was launched by Dharma records in June 2024 . 'This small book is exactly 25,000 words long. It corresponds to the 25,000 metres or strokes I swam during the month when my Mum was dying. After I had swum about 47 km I counted up all the words I had written during this difficult period. Approximately 43,000. I was amazed, as if each stroke had somehow translated into a word, excluding my rather long pushoffs. What was I trying to say? Did it really translate? Or is the swim itself perhaps impenetrable, untranslatable, in a language all of its own, one of water and muscle, energy and pain.' • October 2024 The Swimming Diaries (2024) is selected for two more film markets in addition to Visions du Reel - Ji.hlava Documentary Festival, Czech Republic, and AGORA film market, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Greece• October 2024 The Swimming Diaries is Official Selection at Kerry International Film Festival, IrelandAugust 2024 - Water Holds Me Like A Lover - a film installation concert, a collaboration between myself and composer Donna McKevitt, which takes place at the Ramsgate WW2 tunnels for the Festival of Sound. This immersive film concert event will bring together live music from tThe Swimming Diaries (2024) soundtrack album, composed by McKevitt, as well as tracks from her earlier album, Translucence, based on Derek Jarman's writings. I've created a reimagined film installation with film excerpts from The Swimming Diaries (2024) film, and footage of Jarman's garden at Dungeness, which will be projected into the tunnels leading to the sea. Music will be performed by Donna McKevitt and sopranos Penelope Appleyard and Clare Stewart, both members of the critically acclaimed vocal ensemble Apollo 5, together with cellist Rosie Banks-Francis. There will be a Q & A after the event. Water Holds Me Like A Lover tickets here. This is a SOLD OUT event with extra standing tickets released.• June 2024 The Swimming Diaries film is presented on BBC Radio 3 Night Tracks 'Music for a Darkling Hour' and the song, Go the Limits, from the film soundtrack is played. Listen back on the link at 15 minutes. The Swimming Diaries soundtrack album is launched this month• May 2024 The first single from The Swimming Diaries soundtrack album is released - Go to the Limits by Donna McKevitt. The music video (which has already had 18,000 hits) I made for the track is here • April 2024 The Swimming Diaries (2024) is selected for Visions du Reel marketplace VdR marketplace • 2024 The Swimming Diaries (2024) launches to a fantastic audience response, the World premiere takes place at the Dublin International Film Festival DIFF    Tybyra and the Harlequin (2022) Tybyra and the Harlequin (2022) will launch at the Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro, in the Cinemateca, on December 1st, 2022. A dance docufiction I have written and directed during my British council artist in residency, about rights of nature, colonialism and LGBTQ+ issues, featuring trans dance performance artist Omba Yiara, Directors of Photography Rai do Vale and Isabella Moriconi, music by Billy Kenrick, produced by Instituto MESA and supported by the British Council.  Still from Tybyra and the Harlequin (2022) Image by Rai do Vale and Isabella Moriconi The Cytokine Storms (2020)  The Cytokine Storms (2020) Susan Thomson Pleased to announce my new film The Cytokine Storms (2020, 38 mins) You can view the full-length film here, plus an essay about the film here The Cytokine Storms Circa magazine. A lyrical essay film, it looks at the the colonial echoes of the U.K. government response to the COVID-19 pandemic, exploring colonial responses to the Irish and Indian Famines, laissez-faire economics and indifference to marginalised lives. It interweaves contemporary personal and geopolitical events. With thanks to the Arts Council for a COVID-19 Award. You can view the trailer here. The film is hosted by CIRCA and screened at Sussex University, Centre for World Environmental History CWEH on Friday 29th January 2021, along with a visiting lecture. It was also the subject of an interview on the Quarantini podcast. Forbidden City (2019)
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| Forbidden City (2019) still image Susan Thomson |
View the Trailer here
Forbidden City (2019, 35 minutes, dir. Susan Thomson) is a short experimental documentary essay, filmed in Wunsdorf, just outside Berlin, Germany. This area was used over the course of the last century, as a POW camp in the First World War, as a place for Nazi communications in the bunkers there during the Second World War, and as the so-called Forbidden City after the construction of the Berlin wall. In a poetic monologue, the narrator takes a journey back to the Soviet forbidden city as well as the fields which were formerly inhabited by prisoners of war, and features their archival voices and songs on the soundtrack, from the Lautarchiv at Humboldt University. The narrator also focuses on the Irish brigade who trained in the camp during WW1, planning an Irish uprising against the British colonial empire, and the characters of Roger Casement and his translator, Jospeh Zerhusen. Casement was consequently tried the following year for treason at the Old Bailey in London. His so-called 'Black Diaries' which detailed his homosexual encounters were circulated and used to discredit him, and he was subsequently executed. The film evokes the idea of imprisonment, both at various times over the course of the last century, and in many places now. With the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, the film has an added relevance.
The Loophole (2011)
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Fire Practice Theatre (2009 4K HD RED 15 minutes 30)
Funded by Arts Council of Ireland New Work Award, filmed in Leixlip Fire Station, Kildare
Funded by Arts Council of Ireland New Work Award, filmed in Leixlip Fire Station, Kildare
Fire
Practice Theatre is a two screen gallery installation film, in three
acts. The script changes subtly during each repeated act, tension
builds, as real firefighters act alongside actors, performing a fire
practice. Residing somewhere between fiction and documentary, the
film shows firefighters practising their skills on a tall purpose
built house in a fire station. This is depicted as if it were a piece
of theatre, a rehearsal or ritual in a theatre where only one play is
performed. There are different levels of fiction. A script is
performed by actors playing firefighters; lines are swapped,
dramatically forgotten and a scene arrives early. The fake lives
which are saved in the practice represent aspects of the psyche. The
dichotomy of fake and real which is invoked refers to the self or
psyche as if a fake self is being sustained. The house is unlived-in,
sinister, the piece reminiscent of a psyche where trauma and desire
are endlessly replayed.
Screenings
2011: Solo show at Broadcast gallery, Dublin
2011: Screening at turnthelighton Festival, Dublin
2011: Screening at turnthelighton Festival, Dublin
2011: Group show Digital Arts in the
Gallery: New Media showcase at Catalyst Arts, Belfast
2010: Official Selection at HDFEST Film Festival, Portland, Oregon
2010: Official Selection at HDFEST Film Festival, Portland, Oregon
2010: Installation
at ‘No Soul for Sale’, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern with
thisisnotshop Writing Workshop
2010: Screening at Union Docs, New York
supported by Culture Ireland
2009: Solo show at thisinotashop gallery,
Dublin
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